“Miss, you are making trouble for yourself and me. Now go over yonder and sit down!”
“Sir, there’s this woman downstairs.”
“What woman?” Max said without looking up.
“Don’t know, Sir. But if you don’t let her come up here, I think I’m going to have to shoot her.”
“I don’t have the time to see anyone, Briggs.”
“Yes, Sir. I said that to her, Sir. More than once. She just ain’t listening.”
“Did she say what it was about?”
“I reckon she’s looking for somebody, Sir.”
Perkins suddenly stuck his head in the door. “Sir, Miss Markham’s downstairs.”
“Miss Markham. Briggs, you didn’t say it was Miss Markham.”
“Sir, she didn’t tell me her name. She didn’t tell me nothing but to get out of her way—”
“She’s mad, Colonel,” Perkins interrupted.
“Well, get her up here, damn it—did you get the boys cleaned up?”
“Some of it, Sir. Them young’uns must have waded through every manure pile between here and home—except Jake. He did a belly flop. It’s going to take some major scrubbing to get them fit for decent folks again. Briggs, don’t just stand there. Go get the lady!” Perkins barked.
“Yes, Sergeant Major!”
In no time at all, Max could hear Maria coming up the steps. He stood to greet her, and the minute she stepped into the doorway, he knew that Perkins had been correct in his assessment. She was, without a doubt, angry.
“Where are the boys?” she said, her carefully quiet voice belying her riled state.
“Perkins, where exactly are they?” Max asked his sergeant major, but he was looking at Maria. Her hair was coming undone and the color was high in her cheeks. She was out of breath and disheveled, and, he suddenly realized, quite…lovely.
“They’re still getting washed up—at the pump, Sir. It’s the manure, Sir,” Perkins added unnecessarily.
Maria looked at the man in a way that didn’t invite further elaboration.
“I want them, please,” she said. “And I want them now.”
“I take it they are in some kind of trouble,” Max said, still trying to keep it light.
“They aren’t the only one,” she answered.
“Maria, is this about my mother and sister—”
“This is about the boys running off from the house and coming here when they were supposed to be taking a nap—and about you not even wondering for one instant how it is they came to be here or why they weren’t accompanied or if anyone would be worried.”
She stepped forward then, and with no warning whatsoever, smacked him on the arm. Hard. “This is about your mother and sister,” she said. “Perkins, I want those boys!” she said as she strode out.
Max stood staring after her, fighting down his amusement and finally losing. Desperately in need of marrying or not, she had actually hit him. He chuckled to himself and rubbed the place on his arm where her small and he had once thought delicate fist had connected, then walked to the window, watching for her to come out of the building. He supposed that a good swat on the arm of an exasperating male came easily to a girl who had grown up with two brothers. Kate had certainly been known to resort to such a response on more than one occasion.
His amusement abruptly faded. Thanks to the war, Maria had no brothers now—and Kate didn’t have much of one.
“Sir,” Private Briggs said behind him.
“Now what is it?”
“Another woman, Sir.”
“Well, who?” Max said, thinking perhaps Mrs. Russell would like to come hit him, as well.
“Me,” Nell Hansen said in the doorway.
“Nell, I told you—”
“I know, Briggsie,” she said mischievously. “But I just couldn’t wait down there. If I’d stayed much longer, a couple of those old biddies would have gotten out the tar and feathers. Colonel Woodard will give me five minutes, won’t you, Colonel?” she said, turning her considerable charms on Max, as well.
“It’s all right, Briggs—but this is the limit for the day.”
“Yes, Sir!” Briggs said, clumping back downstairs to take up his busy post.
“Is it true?” Nell asked as soon as Briggs had gone. “Is what true?”
“Are you marrying our Maria?”
Max looked at her and didn’t answer. Neither did he inquire as to where she had gotten her information.
“Are you?” she persisted. “Tell me.”
“I am,” Max said after moment.
“Are you fit to marry her? Because if you’re not, for God’s sake, don’t do it. I’ve watched one friend suffer the miseries of Holy Matrimony, and I don’t want to go through watching another one. You and Phelan both—”
“I’m not like Phelan Canfield,” he interrupted.
“No? How do you know? Maybe you’re worse. You were both in prisons during the war. He took to drink to keep from thinking about it—and you. I don’t know what you do to get by. I keep thinking about when Suzanne and Maria and I were little girls, you know? The three of us, we used to plan our weddings all the time. We’d dress up in these old lace curtains our mamas gave us. Maria—Maria wanted a candlelight wedding ceremony with flowers and cut-glass candelabras all around the room. And afterward her new husband would waltz her around the floor. Just her and him—with everybody else looking on—and a fiddler playing a beautiful and sad three-quarter-time waltz. She’s the only one of us left to—”
Nell abruptly stopped, and Max thought for a moment she was going to cry, but she recovered quickly. “I just don’t want you to hurt her, all right?”
“It’s not my intention to do so,” Max said.
“Good.” She was looking at him intently. “You’re not a bit like Billy,” she said after a moment.
“If that’s all, I’m very busy this afternoon,” Max said. He was not interested in hearing a point-by-point comparison to the dead fiancé.
“No, it’s not all,” she said bluntly. “I came to ask you about my mother.”
“Your mother,” Max said, drawing a blank.
“She was staying with Suzanne when she died in the fire. That’s what my mother does for her living—she looks after sick people. She won’t take any money from me, and it’s hard for her to go live with any of our family—because of what I am. I was wondering if maybe you could hire her to help out with Mr. Markham—since you’re going to be the son-in-law and you’ve got the coin.”
“He has two male attendants from the army hospital already.”
“Then hire her to help Maria with the boys. She loves those two little hell-raisers. It would help her a lot if she had them to take her mind off what happened to Suzanne. Hire her to do that—or let her cook or whatever else Maria needs. What I’m asking is that you give her something to do. So she won’t be blaming herself because she didn’t die when Suzanne did—and it isn’t like Maria doesn’t need the help. Maria’s all worn out trying to keep her daddy alive and looking after Suzanne’s children. You should have seen her before the war, Woodard. She doesn’t look much like she used to then. She was so pretty. It was no wonder Billy and Phelan both wanted to marry her—”
“Anything else?” Max interrupted.
“Yes. Don’t tell either one of them I said anything about this. My mother won’t work for you if she thinks I had a hand in it. Will you help me out here, or not?”
“I’ll…consider it.”
She looked at him in surprise—as if his consideration was much more than she ever expected.
“All right then,” she said, smiling. “Good. You know what, Woodard? Maria might be better off married to you after all.”
Max sat down at his desk after Nell had gone. He had papers to read and sign, reports to be made and sent to Washington, but he didn’t do any of it. He just sat—until he realized Perkins had come to stand in his usual spot.
“Perkins,” Max said.
“
Yes, Sir!”
“I want you to find me some cut-crystal candleholders.”
Chapter Fourteen
Maria stood on a low stool in the middle of her bed-chamber. The woman, who had arrived on the doorstep with the rest of Mrs. Woodard’s baggage, circled her intently with her mouth full of straight pins. The ivory satin gown Maria reluctantly wore, which had also accompanied Mrs. Woodard on her trip south, was still unfinished. The side seams of the bodice had only been loosely basted, and there was a whole basket full of satin roses of varied shades of white and ivory and ecru yet to be sewn onto the skirt and train. The woman pulled and pinned and gave small sighs, which Maria could only interpret as barely restrained responses to the utterly hopeless. She had asked the woman her name at one point, only to have the question dismissed with a wave of her hand. Clearly, the woman had no need for pleasantries when she sewed.
Until this moment, Maria hadn’t given a thought to what she would be married in. She certainly hadn’t considered anything so elegant as this. It was far too beautiful for her kind of bride, and she had tried every way she could to refuse it.
“Please don’t say no, my dear,” Mrs. Woodard said. “I know you have your Southern pride—Mrs. Howe, John’s wife—explained that to me very specifically. She also explained that for Max’s sake, you might be willing to suffer this small gesture of mine—and I most sincerely ask you to do so. I expect any number of his officers may be attending the ceremony. Will you do this for him—and for me?”
Maria had capitulated—in what she saw as likely a whole series of capitulations before this thing was done. A bunch of strange soldiers baked and cooked in the summer kitchen. Ceily and Mrs. Woodard and Kate were on the back porch—still in their finery—trying to scrub the smell off Joe and Jake. To say that she barely recognized her life anymore would be beyond understatement.
There was also the matter of hitting the groom. Maria had been so angry with him for not telling her his mother and sister were arriving. To let them just appear with no warning like that, when she looked so awful, so totally unpresentable. And then having the boys run off to see him without permission had only added fuel to her already justified ire. It had simply been the last straw. She’d been angry with Max Woodard before, but this time she’d resorted to violence.
“Turn, turn, turn!” the woman said around the pins in her mouth. “Stop!”
Not for one minute had Maria expected his family to come here for the wedding, much less bearing a dress, a coronet, tulle veil and a more than disconcerted seam-stress. And even if it had occurred to her, she would never have expected to be received with such open acceptance from the women in Max Woodard’s family. She was completely unnerved by the fact that Mrs. Woodard and Kate seemed to know everything about her.
Almost everything.
She couldn’t for the life of her imagine Max sitting in a parlor somewhere, reciting information about this Miss Markham he suddenly planned to marry. But he must have. They knew about her father’s illness, about Suzanne and the boys, and, Maria suspected, Phelan’s disappearance. If Mrs. Woodard was the least bit scandalized at the haste associated with the marriage, it certainly didn’t show. Mrs. Woodard had spent a long while with Maria’s father after she arrived, and he now thought she was the most gracious woman he’d ever met in his life, Yankee or not. And she was—which only added to Maria’s dismay. How could the woman possibly be at ease with her son’s plan to marry an embittered Rebel like Maria Rose Markham?
Maria looked around at a soft knock on the door. Ceily Carscaddon peeped in.
“I’ve been invited to dinner here tomorrow night,” she said.
“Is there going to be a dinner?” Maria asked.
“So I’m told,” Ceily assured her. “We’ve got the boys all shined and polished again—and what a job that was. James has come to fetch me, so I’m going home—he’s invited tomorrow, too, of course. Acacia Kinnard and Valentina are downstairs. And Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Justice. My guess is Mrs. Russell told Acacia the colonel’s mother was here—and she didn’t believe a word of it and had to come see for herself. I expect poor Mrs. Justice simply got caught in the stampede. And I know the Kinnards will have extracted dinner invitations of their own by the time the dust clears.”
“We won’t have enough chairs,” Maria said.
“Maria, Maria, haven’t you noticed? The Yankee army has only to command, ‘Let there be seating,’ and there will be chairs aplenty. I’m thinking this is going to be a rather formal affair. Do you have a suitable dress?”
“Of course I don’t have a suitable dress. I haven’t had a suitable dress since before the war.”
“That’s what I thought. So I’m going to lend you one of mine. I think the rose silk will fit you and look wonderful with your color. I’m going to take a Yankee soldier with me now and send it back with him. So ‘bye—and you’re going to make a lovely bride,” she added appreciatively.
Ceily closed the door, only to open it again with one last bulletin before she disappeared.
“The groom is here, by the way. He said something about speaking with your father.”
The groom.
Maria did not want to encounter the groom.
“James says he’s in a bit of a huff. I couldn’t tell by looking at him, but James could. See you tomorrow!”
“Ceily, thank you!” Maria called after her, not knowing if Ceily heard her or not.
She sighed and gave herself up to twirling on the stool again. If Max was in a bad mood, she didn’t have to think very hard to conclude why. She would have to see him, of course—huff or not. She was marrying the man—as far as she knew. In light of the smack she had given him, he could have gone to see her father in order to withdraw his offer of matrimony.
She heard the door to her father’s room open and close, then heavy footsteps down the back stairs.
Good, she thought. If Max was going downstairs, he would surely be cornered by Valentina Kinnard. And that should keep him busy for a time—until Maria could shore up enough nerve to face him. She had no intention of apologizing—and oh, how her late mother would frown at that. Whatever the provocation, true ladies did not go around hitting.
The seamstress put in the last pin and urged Maria off the stool and out of the wedding gown, completely ignoring whatever modesty Maria might have wanted to uphold. Maria put on her everyday dress quickly in a feeble effort to hide her ragged underpinnings, but the woman was totally absorbed in her alterations and paid Maria no attention whatsoever.
Maria looked in both directions before she stepped out into the hallway. It was empty, but she had no idea how long it would stay that way. She decided to go down the main stairs—but when she reached the top step, she heard Mrs. Woodard calling her. She immediately turned and hurried to the back stairs, just in case Mrs. Woodard had Max with her. As she descended, she heard someone calling him, as well, and she realized too late that he was trying to make his own escape and coming up the stairs in the opposite direction.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. He stopped on a step below her; it put him directly into the shaft of sunlight from the porthole window that kept the stairs from being so dark.
She stared down at him, wondering how it was that she had never really noticed much about him before, and why now, at this moment, she was seeing everything. The color of his hair—brown and several shades lighter than hers. The stubble on his chin and the slight cleft. His straight brows. His finely shaped mouth…
He took a step upward. And then another.
They were at eye level.
Had she noticed the piercing blueness of his eyes before? Perhaps not. Perhaps she didn’t dare register such things, because he would become a man and not merely an enemy.
His eyes were so sad—that, she had noticed. He was looking at her so gravely.
Such pain.
What happened to you? she thought. What terrible thing did you see—or do?
Maria had no
sense that he reached for her, nor she for him, but she was in his arms somehow. He held her tightly, both of them caught in whatever this moment was. Their foreheads touched; their breaths mingled. And suddenly his mouth was on hers. She gave a soft moan, completely overwhelmed by the feel and the taste of him. It was as if she suddenly couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t touch him enough, kiss him enough. She had never felt such need, such hunger.
She held on to him, her fingers digging into the back of his tunic.
Some part of her registered the hated uniform—but her only reality was him and not the dominance he represented. Nothing else mattered. She didn’t care who she was or where she was or that people still called both of them from below.
“Maria!”
“Colonel Woodard!”
He broke away just long enough to look into her eyes—he was as incredulous at what was happening as she was—and then his mouth found hers again.
“Maria!” someone said sharply at the bottom of the stairs—Mrs. Russell.
He released her abruptly. “Go!” he whispered, sending her on down the steps, reaching out to caress her cheek as she slipped from his grasp. She could still feel the brush of his fingers against her mouth as she stepped reeling into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mrs. Russell demanded, catching her arm. “Are you about to faint again? Sit down.”
“No,” Maria assured her. “I’m fine.”
It wasn’t faintness she felt. It was white-hot carnal desire, the kind that surely must be a sin. She didn’t want to sit. She wanted to look at herself in the mottled washstand mirror by the back door. Surely, surely what she had felt on the stairs, what she still felt, must show. Had Ceily experienced this with James? Or Suzanne with Phelan? The only thing she knew with certainty was that she had never felt like this with Billy, even the night they parted.
“There you are, Maria!” Max’s mother said, coming in from the central hall. “We have two handsome young gentlemen who are anxious to see you.”
Kate was already bringing the boys in, both of them with clean, shiny faces and still wet hair and both of them wrapped in flannel.
The Bride Fair Page 18
